The blast of the shotgun ripped through the air again, and a second later I heard Heather yell, “Zombie!” I spun in time to see her fire again. The man—zombie—loping toward her staggered a bit at the second blast, but in the next breath was on her and slammed her to the ground beneath him, her head thumping hard on the asphalt.
“Shit!” I broke into a run, even as the zombie wrapped his hands in Heather’s shirt and hauled her upright. She tried hard to swing a punch at him, but it was clear she was dazed from the head-thump.
I poured on the speed to get back to her. I didn’t have training in anything resembling hand to hand fighting, but I’d been in enough scraps and street fights to know that the will to win could turn the tide. I still had the bat in my right hand, and I made a charging swing to clock him in the back right across the kidneys.
He staggered and let out a roar of pain. It didn’t drop him, as I’d hoped it would, but he lost his grip on Heather. She stumbled back as he turned on me, his face twisted with fury and hands clenched into fists.
“Batter up, motherfucker!” I cried out as I swung again, this time at his head. Unfortunately, even injured he still had a fair amount of speed. He moved inside my swing, grabbed my arm and took me down to the ground in a foot-sweep thing that probably would’ve been cool as hell if I hadn’t been on the receiving end of it. Twisting frantically, I slammed my booted foot into the side of his knee, which put him off-balance enough that when I swung the bat at his other knee the blow sent him to the ground.
He had some serious fight skills and was on me in a heartbeat, but I had a black belt in dirty-fighting-bitch. Heather had scored a direct hit on him with the shotgun, and holes peppered his torso. Snarling, I forced my hand into a wound in his midsection, widening the hole more, then curled my fingers around anything I could and yanked hard.
“God damn it!” he roared as I did my best to pull zombie-dude’s insides out through the hole. He grabbed my wrist and wrenched it hard, but I kept my grip tight on his insides and sunk my teeth into his forearm. I didn’t have much skill, but I sure as hell had a lot of will. Unfortunately zombie-dude outweighed me by about a hundred pounds and was a helluva lot stronger. He pried my hand off whatever internal organ now dangled from his abdomen, then brought his fist down hard into my jaw.
I felt and heard bone crunch, and even through the slightly dulled senses that came with burning through brains, it still hurt like a bitch and left me stunned. I tried to struggle and kick, but it was like fighting in fog while wrapped in a giant cotton ball. His eyes narrowed in satisfaction as he drew back his fist again. I thought he was simply going to beat my skull to a shattered pulp, but instead he reached to the small of his back, pulled a gun, and lifted it toward my head.
Well crap.
I caught a flash of movement beside me, and in the next second two things happened: The muzzle of a shotgun made contact with zombie-dude’s head, and that same head disappeared in a deafening blast of buckshot, blood, bone, and brains.
The mostly headless zombie slumped heavily to the side. Ears ringing, I lay under him, sucking in air with heavy gasps. A moment later, I shoved him the rest of the way off me, then wiped clumps of flesh and brain from my face.
“Nice job,” I said to Heather, or rather, I tried to say. Instead all that came out was, “neh sshov.” Oh yeah, jaw shattered.
Heather swayed, frowned down at the ex-zombie with what looked like a trace of sadness. “Brain stem,” she croaked. “He…was going to blow your brain stem.”
Oh shit. That would have killed me for sure. I looked over at the zombie corpse. Killed me as dead as he was now.
Heather drew a breath to speak, then jerked and let out a cry as blood sprayed from her left upper arm. I swung my gaze to the two men who I’d thought were out of the action. Wrong.
Heather dove behind the jeep and clutched at her bicep, looking far more pissed than frightened at being shot. Hungry and with breath rasping horribly, I grabbed the bat and staggered back to my feet, lip curling into a snarl as I lurched toward the two men. My head felt unbalanced with my jaw hanging at such a strange angle, and the wound in my gut still seeped blood, but I managed a shambling, inexorable progress toward my foes. The one with a leg full of buckshot and a crushed shoulder got another shot off in my direction, but I had to assume he missed since I didn’t feel the punch of lead through my flesh. The second one fumbled with his gun in a desperate attempt to unjam it, but his smashed right arm pretty much ensured failure.
I lurched closer and raised the bat, focused on the one with the ready weapon. “Drop…gun…or…die,” I managed to slur through the broken jaw, then jerked and nearly went down as a bullet smacked into my hip. Pain flared, and I swayed for a second, but the hip seemed to be willing to support my weight for a little while longer. With an animal growl, I willed myself to close the distance. A frisson of terror passed through the shooter’s eyes right before my bat came down on his head. I didn’t have the zombie superpower thing going on right now, but I sure as hell had the really-pissed-off-bitch thing happening, and even a weakling like me could swing a baseball bat to good effect.
“Got one…rule…” I gurgled out as I brought the bat down on his head again. “Shoot me…I…eat…you.” I dropped heavily to my knees as I smacked him one more time to split the skull open. Growling with a mix of hunger and fury, I grabbed a handful of warm and still-pulsing brain from the shattered head and crammed it into my mouth.
The other man stared at me in horror as he tried to scrabble away, his jammed gun clutched in his good hand. He froze as my eyes locked onto his. I gulped down the brains, and a few seconds later I felt my jaw shift back into place. “Drop the fucking gun,” I said, voice an ugly rasp, “or you’ll be my goddamn dessert.”
He went utterly still, eyes flicking from the gobbets of brains dripping from my fingers, to the blood around my mouth, to his oh-so-very-dead buddy. He tossed the gun away from him, eyes wide in shock and revulsion.
I gave him a slow smile, well aware that it was full of gore. “Yeah, that’s more like it.” Without taking my eyes from his, I scooped another handful of brain from his partner’s skull and stuffed it into my mouth. God damn, but there was nothing better tasting in the whole damn world than warm brain when you were shot the hell up. Like a cold beer after a long hot day of working in the yard.
I scraped out more of the dude’s brain, shuddering in relief as everything knit itself back together and normal sensation returned. The rain chose this moment to finally let up, and a chorus of frogs raised their voices as if to celebrate the brief interlude. The harsh breathing of the living man cut through the drip of water and croak of frogs in a strange harmony.
I ran my fingers around the interior of the skull, getting the last few clumps of brain matter, and sucked them from my fingers like icing from a mixing bowl. Deliberately not wiping my mouth, I straightened and moved to the surviving gunman, crouched and did a quick pat down to make sure he didn’t have another gun on him. No weapons, but I did find a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in a shirt pocket. Grinning down at him, I pulled a cigarette out, stuck it between my bloody lips and lit it. Even allowed myself one sweet drag. Just one. Didn’t want to waste too many brains. But damn, the moment called for it. I was reformed, but I’d never be perfect, and that was okay with me.
Cigarette still in my mouth, I grabbed the front of his shirt and dragged him back toward Heather. He let out a strangled scream as his shattered knee twisted, but I had no trouble ignoring it.
Heather was sitting on the wet ground, leaning up against the tire of her Jeep. At first I thought she was muttering to herself until I realized she was still on the phone with Brian. At least I assumed it was still Brian. If he’d been listening the whole time, he’d sure as hell gotten an earful.
Her face was pale, and blood ran in a slow rivulet down her left arm. Rain-diluted blood dripped from the wet hair behind her ear, probably from when she whacked the back of her head on the pavement when zombie-dude tackled her. I dumped the Saberton guy on the ground and gave him a hard look as I flicked the cigarette into a nearby puddle.
“You can try to escape or cause trouble if you want,” I told him. “But when I catch you, I’m eating you. Understand?”
He gulped and jerked his head in a stiff nod. I considered him for a moment, then bent and tore his shirt from him before turning back to Heather. “How bad is it?” I asked as I crouched and wound the torn shirt around her arm in an effort to stop the bleeding.
“I’m okay. Just cold,” she murmured, but she looked like she was having trouble focusing on me.
Snorting, I tugged the headset from her ear and stuck it in my own. “Hey, Brian, it’s Angel. You got anyone coming? We need help, and calling nine-one-one is probably a bad idea.”